


Eleventh Christmas

by tatooedlaura



Series: Christmas [12]
Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-06
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-28 17:01:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10140560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatooedlaura/pseuds/tatooedlaura
Summary: Time to stop this running nonsense ...





	

They’d been forced to leave northern Minnesota mid-February after Mulder caught one of his bosses staring longer than necessary and asking more personal questions than Mulder deemed appropriate for someone on the run from all kinds of law to be able to answer. Scully had quietly left with him at midnight, walking away from her job, her semi-friends and her identity as Ella Fargas, the nice janitor lady at the high school who hadn’t flinched, regardless of what she had to clean up, which impressed everyone at that school above and below the age of 18.

They’d learned, over the years, to keep everything packed up and ready to go. They didn’t have too many personal possessions but what they had, they didn’t want to lose. Scully’s suitcase contained her clothes, her carved chess set and the ornaments they’d collected while her backpack contained the monstrous medical exam and study book she’d received the previous Christmas from Mulder because ‘he didn’t want her to lose all those smarts she had’. In Mulder’s suitcase and backpack were his laptop which they’d saved months for and gave him access to the world, articles, newspapers, the Internet and forums for everything and anything he wanted to find out. Also, his notebooks, a collection of stolen pens and as he told Scully, a few other odds and ends that were completely and totally useless but completely necessary to life.

They lived out of these bags, two each plus a third large duffel for winter gear, shoes and food in case of quick getaway.

This out-of-suitcase living was now so common place that when Mulder forgot momentarily and hung up his clean shirt in the closet, she gave him a look of such incredulity that he flushed, feeling like he’d cracked their system in half and the world was on the verge of collapse.

Then she smiled at him, taking the shirt from the hanger and folding it, packing it away with the rest of the newly laundered items, “brain farting, as you put it Mulder, is not usually your style. Got something on your mind?”

“Not yet.” Squeezing her hips as he slipped by her, “I’ll tell you if it pans out though, promise.”

Now intrigued, she carried on with her nightly routine, bathing, hair-drying, reading, having Mulder quiz her, volleying back and forth about some whacked-out theory Mulder found online before she asked again, “what are you planning in the brain of yours?”

Poking her side as he lay next to her under the sheets, “hey, a little intrigue is good for us. Keeps the fires alive.”

In one fell swoop, she rolled him over, climbed on top and pushed his shirt up around his neck, “I think our fires are just fine.”

&&&&&&&&&&

They wandered East and West, North and South, back and forth, two days or a week at a time, deciding the comforts of their semi-settled Minnesota existence might not be the best way to go for awhile. It wasn’t until late September that they slowed their ramble, Scully becoming frequently more ill-at-ease with the aimlessness of their journey. She’d made it through almost three years but it was taking its toll. As a couple, they were doing okay, the occasional fight, the occasional silence, the occasional mutterings of ‘jackass’ and ‘pain in my ass’ while both fumed at one another, testing who would crack first and apologize.

But her mind and her spirit were exhausted and it showed, Mulder apologizing more frequently and hugging her more closely than she thought possible.

One morning, huddled safely in a cabin they’d rented in cash, off the beaten path to all but the passing deer hunter, he pulled her towards him, moving the stray blonde hairs from her cheeks, “hey Scully?”

“Unless you have breakfast somewhere in the vicinity of my mouth, don’t wake me up.”

Knowing her just that well, he held up a torn section of cinnamon roll from last night’s dessert, “will this do?”

Eyes still shut, she opened her mouth and accepted the peace offering, sucking the icing off his fingers with a slow, drawn-out lip smack, “yes. What do you want?”

“What would you say to us looking for a place to live, like a real place to live? One with walls and windows and a fridge bigger than a stamp and maybe even more than one toilet.”

He really should have waited until she’d swallowed before dropping this bomb on her and it took a few minutes to dislodge the dough from her lungs, coughing until she cried then calming again from her scary little fit of near-death, “what?”

Mulder could smile now that he knew she wasn’t going to die in front of him, “I was thinking that we could start concocting some kind of story where we’ve gone our separate ways and you would like to come back to the real world and need help finding a house and you could talk to Skinner and see if it’s even possible. Have him feel things out, maybe ask around to know if it would be safe for you to go back to normal.” Sliding her gently back down to lay beside him, “I can’t keep doing this to you. You deserve more than hotel mattresses and living out a suitcase.”

“Mulder …”

“No, I think we should think about this. If it works, then good but if it doesn’t, at least you know we’ll have tried.”

“You … you wouldn’t really leave though, right? You promised.”

“I would be perfectly content to hide in the house all day. I can go running and outside after dark or if we get a place with enough land, I could garden or build stuff, who knows. I just know that I can’t do this to you anymore.”

The thought honestly scared her but in a giddy, good way and kissing him, icing still on her lips, they celebrated the possibility of not having to run anymore.

&&&&&&&&&&&

It was a long process and they were holed up in North Carolina when Christmas arrived, with two feet of snow, windchills in the double negatives and a Mulder-smile, commenting on how it felt just like they were back having their first Christmas together, only naked this time.

Even though it wasn’t Christmas morning, Scully leaned over the edge of the bed and retrieved his gift, “open it. I know it’s early but open please.”

Never arguing with an unclothed Scully had been his personal rule since the first time he’d laid eyes on her perfect breasts and not about to break that rule, he took the gift, unwrapping it with paper flying everywhere, then staring at it in confusion.

It was a clear ornament, one that unscrewed in half, holding a single key.

Opening the orb slowly, he took out the key, never taking his eyes off her, “you have me totally befuddled.”

“That’s one of our house keys.” Now he just looked so totally ‘what?!’ that she smiled, sitting up, wrapping comforter around shoulder before continuing, “the paperwork went through with a little help from Skinner and the real estate lady sent the key to the Post Office box and I picked it up yesterday and thought it would be a pretty good gift.”

For some crazy reason, the fact that she would be in a home again soon, with him, like some sort of kind of a hint of a real family, made tears fill his eyes. Holding it up between them, “we should go look at it now.”

“Um, it’s after 9pm, it’s a three-hour drive and that boatload of snow out there isn’t just for looks. Maybe tomorrow or the next day after they’ve plowed some of the highways but right now, we’d be stuck before we got out of town.”

Impatient to the core, he opened his mouth to argue but she shut him up swiftly, her mouth covering his, her body following. Eventually, exhaustion forced him into sleep, mouth slack, body sated, limbs tangled with hers as he mumbled something about christening the new house as soon as possible.

&&&&&&&&&

Three long days later, they were trudging through snowdrifts higher than Scully, forced to leave the car at the main road while they walked the half-mile to the house. Frozen solid, yet sweating profusely under their winter coats and leggings, they didn’t stop to look at the porch or the shuttered windows but went right inside, shucking off clothing to leave in a heap by the door.

Only when they were stripped down to jeans and thermal shirts did they look around.

This time is was Scully crying, stepping up the stairs a few feet to grab him in a proper hug, squeezing his neck until he choked out a laugh and she lightened her grip. Burying his face in the side of her neck, “welcome home.” A few minutes later, he peeled away from her, holding up a finger to keep her in place, which she obeyed with open wonderment. Watching him carefully remove a box from his jacket pocket, he held it up to her, still in its Christmas paper, “I would have given you this on Christmas morning but decided to wait until we got here.”

Intrigued, she ripped the paper, opened the box then removed a clear glass Christmas bulb. Without looking or reading the words on it, she looked at him, “you stole my idea.”

“Actually, Dana Scully, you stole mine. I’ve been waiting since October, when we decided to find the house.”

The Dana made her grin, the Scully made her warm from head to toe but the gift made her speechless. Inside, on a bunch of pulled apart cotton balls, sat a simple, gold band, a small, deep red-purple stone set with a small diamond on either side. Stomach officially all over the map and brain forgetting how to speak, she turned the bulb slowly, reading, “will you marry me?” and the year, Mulder’s script careful and precise in its sloppy familiarity.

She couldn’t answer. She couldn’t breathe. She could, however, feel her heart thudding against her ribs, painfully strong and erratic as all hell. The only thing she could do was stare, the tears blurring things before they fell but in between watery visions, she could see Mulder clear as day, across from her, perfect as anything in the world and all hers.

“Yes.”

The answer shot out towards him like a bullet, fast, sharp, crisp and unmistakable.

He laughed, truly afraid for a moment she was either going to faint, explode or most scary of them all, say ‘no’. Taking the ornament from her, he opened it, slipped the ring on her finger then held up the words to her again, “sure about your answer to this?”

This time her ‘yes’ was whispered in his ear.


End file.
